JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook (2nd edition)

In today's Web 2.0 world, JavaScript and Dynamic HTML are at the center of the hot new approach to designing highly interactive pages on the client side. With this environment in mind, the new edition of this book offers bite-sized solutions to very specific scripting problems that web developers commonly face. Each recipe includes a focused piece of code that you can insert right into your application.

Why is JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook so popular? After reading thousands of forum threads over the years, author and scripting pioneer Danny Goodman has compiled a list of problems that frequently vex scripters of various experience levels. For every problem he addresses, Goodman not only offers code, but a discussion of how and why the solution works. Recipes range from simple tasks, such as manipulating strings and validating dates in JavaScript, to entire libraries that demonstrate complex tasks, such as cross-browser positioning of HTML elements, sorting tables, and implementing Ajax features on the client.

Ideal for novices as well as experienced scripters, this book contains more than 150 recipes for:

• Working with interactive forms and style sheets
• Presenting user-friendly page navigation
• Creating dynamic content via Document Object Model scripting
• Producing visual effects for stationary content
• Positioning HTML elements
• Working with XML data in the browser

Recipes in this Cookbook are compatible with the latest W3C standards and browsers, including Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, Safari, and Opera 9. Several new recipes provide client-side Ajax solutions, and many recipes from the previous edition have been revised to help you build extensible user interfaces for Web 2.0 applications. If you want to write your own scripts and understand how they work, rather than rely on a commercial web development framework, the JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook is a must.

Danny Goodman has been writing about personal computers and consumer electronics since the late 1970s. In 2006, he celebrated 25 years as a freelance writer and programmer, having published hundreds of magazine articles, several commercial software products, and three dozen computer books. Through the years, his most popular book titles - on HyperCard, AppleScript, JavaScript, and Dynamic HTML - have covered programming environments that are both accessible to non-professionals, yet powerful enough to engage experts. His Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference, now in its third edition, is an O'Reilly bestseller. To keep up to date on the needs of web developers for his recent books, Danny is also a programming consultant to some of the industry's top intranet development groups and corporations. His expertise in implementing sensible cross-browser client-side scripting solutions is in high demand and allows him to, in his words, "get code under my fingernails while solving real-world problems."

Danny was born in Chicago, Illinois during the Truman Administration. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in Classical Antiquity from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He moved to California in 1983 and lives in a small San Francisco area coastal community, where he alternates views between computer screens and the Pacific Ocean.